is there anyone else who is pro-life AND pro-gay rights, or is it just me?

[cacophony]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

i didn't mean to upset you by what i said. i'm sorry, and what you say is true; i could never have that much responsibility (and i'm not just saying that because you probably know where i live ). on the same note, i think abortion is permissible if your health is in danger; which it was. if it comes down to preserving a person that's already fully developed or preserving a child that may well die with the mother, realistically, it would be unreasonable to restrict a woman to have an abortion.

ahhhhhh but think about this. in my case it was week 20 when i developed gestational hypertension. abortions are only legal to week 24. and personally i don't support abortion rights after week 24 because at that point viability is absolutely plausible.

Originally Posted by bryantm3

once again, i didn't mean for the discussion to get that personal and heartwrenching— you proved your point very well.

understand i'm not trying to make it all about me. what i'm trying to do is illustrate how a lofty moral stance affects individuals. because at the end of the day you're talking about individual lives.

one of the things that i always find striking about the anti-choice argument is that you guys all seem to think every pregnancy is normal and every baby is born healthy. well yeah, if a pregnancy is totally normal and the mother has no complications during delivery and no health complications following pregnancy and the baby is born with stellar APGAR scores, then sure it's a great idea that all women should be forced to carry every pregnancy and all babies will be adopted.

but the reality is pregnancy isn't a cute little baby bump that pops out a rolly polly bouncing baby without risk. and many times the risk to the mother's health doesn't manifest until she's going into delivery and suddenly she's hemmoraging and balancing on a razor's edge between life and death. what you're proposing is that women, and only women by necessity of nature, should bear the burden and risk of that mistake, and trying to make it all shiny and happy by lobbing out a noble statement about how men should be held accountable.

here's the point i'm trying to make: in my case i'm married, in my 30s, prepared for the responsibility and risk of pregnancy. i encountered some not uncommon health issues that not only threatened my life and put my babies' long term health at risk, but i'm also one of the lucky portion of women who get to keep their gestational hypertension post-pregnancy as a bonus prize. which means just the very act of getting pregnant resulted in a series of health events that very nearly GUARANTEES my death will be from cardiac arrest or stroke. lucky me. my husband? his health status is exactly the same as the day we conceived. i am, by necessity of nature, the only one who has to pop a pill every morning FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE in the hopes of staving off the inevitable burst blood vessel in my brain that will ultimately end my life. i say this partially to give you a little shake by the lapels because i don't think you've ever dreamed in your wildest fantasy that these things happen, but also to set up a hypothetical:

let's imagine a girl who accidentally gets pregnant in your ideal world, where women are forced to carry pregnancies unless her life is in danger. let's call her mary. mary is a recent college grad in a bad economy who can't find work in her field. as a result she takes a job as a waitress at TGI Fridays. part time, no health insurance. she starts dating another server at that same establishment, let's call him matt. neither one has insurance. they're careful about birth control but after several months of dating one slips past the goalie and she finds herself staring at a pink plus sign on a pregnancy dipstick.

now, as noble as matt may be, bearing "equal" responsibility for this pregnancy doesn't get her even one step closer to health insurance. still, they scrimp and pinch and get her to her first OB GYN appointment to make sure things are normal. by the way, this first OB GYN appointment costs $500 for the uninsured. That gets her a blood test to confirm the pregnancy, some lab tests to make sure hormonal levels are healthy, and a consultation with a doctor. this doesn't afford an ultrasound to confirm the implanted embryo but let's pretend they're willing to throw that in.

first ultrasound at 8 weeks: whaddya know, there are two babies in there. still no health insurance. oh and by the way, these twins are identical so she's only got one placenta. which takes her from a "high risk" category to a "very high risk" category. she's now obligated to monitor her health and the babies' health very closely, which translates to bi-weekly ultrasounds with a perinatal specialist, alternating with bi-weekly visits to the OB GYN. if it was $500 for that first consult, how much do you think they're now having to afford for these visits? we're talking thousands and thousands of dollars before she even hits viability at 24 weeks.

now let's give her my health complications. gestational hypertension, which equals extra monitoring. at 24 weeks she starts going to the perinatal specialist every single week. and she sees her OB GYN every single week. which means she's shelling out hundreds of dollars on tuesday and hundreds of dollars on thursday. oh, and by the way, she's been forced onto bed rest because of the hypertension and risk of premature delivery. so no more waitressing at TGI fridays, which means they're down to matt's meager income.

let's also give her my delivery story. she's rushed to the hospital a month and a half prematurely and she spends a week bedridden, hooked up to monitors. finally when she's informed that she may start seizing and her liver is on the verge of failure they admit her for an emergency c-section. she's also received two very expensive shots of steroids to help develop the babies' lungs at this point. they rush her into the OR where the standard double surgical team is standing by to deliver. there is literally twice the staff in this delivery room, standing by to receive two premature babies.

what do you think that costs?

the babies are lucky, they get good APGAR scores, but because they arrived on planet earth before 35 weeks they're rushed to the NICU. they're too little to have the jaw strength to eat so they have to be tube fed for several days before they learn to successfully drink from a bottle. 13 days in NICU for baby A, 18 days in NICU for baby B.

how much do you think that costs?

i'll tell you. the NICU alone, which ended up providing little more than warmth and feeding assistance (so no extra surgeries or equipment needed) costs $250,000. read that number carefully. the NICU alone costs a quarter of a million dollars. add in all of the prenatal care costs, the hospital expenses, the surgery expenses, and you've got a total bill for this one pregnancy of nearly half a million dollars. yeah. half a million for one pregnancy.

now. mary and matt didn't want this pregnancy. they were forced by law to carry it to term (or as close as they could get). who bears the burden of the expense? even if they could afford it, why should they? why should they be forced by law to bear the physical burden and the health risks as well as the financial ruin? do we put the half million tab on the taxpayers? does the hospital have to eat the cost?

i ask you this because too often the "pro lifers" want to paint the pretty picture of healthy pregnancies and adopted children. but realistically there are very ugly, dirty details to be managed. who pays for the unwanted pregnancies?

and beyond that, let's say these babies weren't so lucky. they could have easily been born with retinal malformation which can result in blindness. they could have been born with fluid on the brain which eats away at brain tissue, resulting in retardation. they could have been born with necrotizing enterocolitis, which means extended NICU stays and multiple surgeries.

who is adopting these babies?

if the mom is forced to carry her unwanted pregnancy to term and gives up her right of custody at birth, who cares for these babies in NICU? and where are the adoptive parents who want to sweep in and sit for hours on end at their babies' incubator, praying for a miracle to heal them? assuming they survive their health complications, who is waiting to adopt the poor baby with cerebral palsy resulting from birth complications? who's waiting to adopt the baby with down syndrome?

where are these legions of adoptive parents, willing to take on the children of complicated pregnancies and deliveries? have you signed up to be an adoptive parent yet?

the anti-abortion movement can come up with all kinds of good reasons why abortion should be outlawed in a just and healthy world. but the world isn't just, and not all women or babies are healthy. and not once in my entire life has a so-called "pro lifer" addressed the grim reality of what they're wishing on the rest of us.